


O Fim Do Mundo

by leporicide



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Post-War, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Noir themes, Slow Build, Space Cowboys - Freeform, Violence, bounty hunter AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:21:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9668168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leporicide/pseuds/leporicide
Summary: "Hunk Garrett’s face, although nothing like the smiling boy in the photograph adjacent to the screen, stares back at him.“Lance,” Pidge calls but her voice sounds blurred, like he’s underwater and nothing makes sense except for the fact that he can’t breathe. “Lance.”He can’t bring himself to answer."Years after the war, Lance tries to collect himself among the stars only to find his best friend on the other side.





	1. The Lines of His Face

**Author's Note:**

> All the other fics I'm writing have taught me one thing. Hance is still the best to write. This fic was developed while listening to Elza Soares's [Mulher do fim do mundo.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heUl6Ga8nUg) Other outside influences include Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy and Trigun. Go figure.
> 
> My Patreon goes up in a few days so consider supporting me! Get new chapters faster than those published on AO3 and original content as well as commission slots.
> 
> Enjoy the action-packed, space drama hance au.

_Fell on my face and got rid of the rest of my life_

There’s a collection of photographs that litter Lance’s dashboard. Small moments of his mother and quiet father, children laughing with the backdrop of a playground. There’s one in his Garrison uniform before he left, mocking a salute with the outline of his house behind him. There’s another with the three of them, the original Garrison trio, before they were Paladins, before they were heroes. Pidge looks solemn, but Lance understands that despite the fondness he has for this moment, it was difficult for her. He’s standing in the middle, a smirk on his lips, out of place with the self-conscious look in his eyes. Sometimes, Lance thinks, as he looks down at the photo, sitting quietly under his crossed feet, he wonders when that look vanished for something more assured. His boots nearly cover up the other half of the photo, the beginning outlines of a face he’s shaped in his dreams over and over. Sitting up properly, Lance reaches forward and plucks the picture from the dash, pulling it close to his face.

Hunk’s grinning face greets him, large and mighty like the man himself. He looks so _young_ compared to when Lance last saw him, fuck they all do. His fingers brush against the photo without his consent, tracing the edges of Hunk’s hair and falling down his torso. He looks genuine, has looked genuine since the whole battle for the universe started and they were just a bunch of kids riding around in giant robot lions. It feels like a century ago, like Lance has simply been going through the motions ever since that ended, ever since they arrived back home and parted ways.

It's no secret that Lance couldn’t assimilate. The raw quintessence the paladins had absorbed over the years from their lions has all but ceased their aging process. He remembers the shock of returning home to find out his father had long passed, his younger sister appearing nearly thirty years older than him. When she reached for a hug, Lance stood, uncomfortable and out of place in skin, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. That’s the thing with space travel, isn’t it? That time bends and weaves in cruel ways that leave him different and rougher. When he entered the house, his mother had not recognized him.

It should have been expected, really. That Lance would never be able to settle down in a world that began to merge with others, where space travel develops at a rapid pace, where Allura builds ties with other worlds and their own. After the first couple of home cooked meals, Lance found himself yearning for green goo, staring at the bowl of soup with little to no interest in lifting the spoon into his mouth.

Pidge is the first to contact him, ten years after their return to Earth. He’s seen her on the news, leading the new frontier in mechanical engineering and technology. Her face is plastered proudly around the Garrison, hailing her as a hero. She hated it at first, complaining about it in their new habit of weekly phone calls. Her voice grounds him, pulls him out of the shallow end of the pool to breathe before hanging up shoves him back into a haze. She helps him remember what’s real.

Lance never asks about the others. He knows that Allura is spear heading the political support of not just nations, but _planets_ of people. That Keith, in all his leader glory, took pulling the Galra from the mess they made, rebuilding themselves under his watch. And Hunk—

Lance can never break himself to ask about Hunk.

It was around the birth of his sister’s second child, the room filled with warm cheers and balloons, that Lance came to the brutal realization that he couldn’t stay there anymore. He didn’t _fit_ , hadn’t been able to look another person in the eye in so long and the silence at night, no hums of electricity, set his teeth on edge. He couldn’t connect anymore, there was nothing there to grasp, nothing that filled the growing void inside his chest that was eating him alive. Thirty years after coming home, the passing of his mother and the births of his nieces, Lance left.

Pidge is waiting for him by the time he crawls to the Garrison. She’s standing in a cruiser, looking unimpressed with the small bag hanging off Lance’s shoulder. “That’s all you got?” She shouts over the hum of the machine, waiting for him to strap in before placing her goggles on. Lance hikes up his scarf and ignores the question, enjoying the feel of leather under him before they’re zipping down the desert, sand rushing up to meet them and collect in his eyes. When they near their destination, the old wooden framing gives it away. Keith’s old shack, as desolate as he remembers, stands tall in front of the setting sun. She’s found her space, in the middle of fuck-knows. The cruiser parks where the sand around it seems to leave a familiar imprint.

Pidge removes her goggles with practiced smoothness. She looks older, if only barely. The dark circles under her eyes makes her look weathered but Lance knows better. He follows her off and into the house, nearly jealous of her ease. She’s settled, a home for herself where her skin doesn’t sit tight, where she feels herself.

Lance drops his bag at the door, shrugging out of his boots if only to be polite.

“Want something to drink?” The question is innocent enough, as if they haven’t seen each other’s face in thirty years. His mouth feels inexplicably dry.

“Please,” he mumbles. His skin is on fire, an itch settling over his whole body that would never be satisfied.

Pidge nods, as if she understands, and fuck, she probably does. She heads to the sink, grabbing a glass and filling it with tap water. Lance spots a growing sunburn on her neck from the bare sun.

“You need to cover up more. It’s bad for your skin.”

Pidge snort and hands him the glass. The water is lukewarm but he chugs it down anyway. “So, you left, huh?”

“Yeah. I’m just,” Lance hesitates. “I’m restless.”

“I figured. That’s why I called you.”

“You once called me solely to tell me that the next Mad Max film starred your favorite Arusian actor.”

“Tell me that didn’t blow your mind.”

It did blow Lance’s mind.

“But this time, I’m serious. Come with me.” Pidge gestures for him to follow, making her way to the back. Soon, Lance regrets removing his shoes when his sock-covered feet make contact with the hot rock that acts as the ground of Pidge’s garage, hidden behind the house and connected by what he assumes is a Pidge-made hallway. The hinges look a little haphazard and there’s duct tape on the door.

The garage has a higher ceiling than Lance thinks it should, nearly empty except for a large machine hidden under a cover. There’s no preamble as Pidge makes her way towards it, wrapping her fingers around the edges and ripping it off. It flutters briefly in front of Lance’s focus, in and out moments of dull blue break his spectrum. The sheet, softly falling to the floor, gives way to a personal transportation vehicle.

“Is that—?” Lance can’t bring himself to finish the sentence, trying to stop his jaw from colliding hard with the ground.

Pidge looks disgustingly smug, an expression he won’t admit he’s missed. “Yeah, that’s right. A genuine ship.”

“No,” Lance mutters, stepping up and ignoring that frozen sensation of his feet. His hands reach out to rub against the metal. It’s an older model, reminds him of the Garrison plans for single-person travel all those years ago. Sure, space travel was rapidly expanding in all directions but this isn’t a rocket, not a single trip there and back. This is home.

“I hear,” Pidges voice rolls behind him in waves, almost hesitant. “I hear that the trading systems up there are a lot more _eventful_ than the stuff down here.”

Lance turns to look at her, the ache in his chest blatant on his face. “Why didn’t you—?”

“Earth is my home, Lance.” She looks sad without her glasses on, like maybe she really has grown that much wiser beyond her years. “And I know this must sound shitty, but it’s not _yours_ anymore, is it?”

The silence is thunderous, something catches in his throat. Lance shakes his head and a couple tears fall loose. “No,” he croaks, looking at the machine with wonder. “No, it’s not.”

It takes them half a year to prepare for Lance’s departure. Allura helps with the paper work, secures him a license to travel and submits the permits for the craft. He misses her voice to as she lulls him into completing the documents.

“Space is very different now, Lance,” she says to him one night, the soft breathing of Pidge at the other end of the couch helping him keep time. “There’s no war to fight.”

“I know,” he hisses before slouching. “I’ll be smart, princess.”

“I don’t doubt that you will.” The smile on Allura’s face tells him everything. “I’ve secured for you the licenses and have set up your channel. I’ll be sending it to Pidge now.”

“Thanks,” Lance begins before he backtracks. “Wait, licenses? As in, plural?”

He stares at the visual feed, watching as the smile turns into a wicked smirk. Maybe he hasn’t missed her as much as he thought. “Well, you do have to work Lance. No one is handing freebies out here. Not even for the old paladins of Voltron.”

Lance frowns. “And what will I be doing?”

“Tell me you haven’t gotten rusty with a pistol.”

“I haven’t touched one since we returned our bayards.”

“I see. I guess you better get to practicing again.”

“What—Allura?”

“How does Bounty Hunter Lance McClain sound?”

\--

Bounty Hunter turns out to be significantly less cool than the old cartoons Lance used to watch taught him. There’s more paperwork than he imagined, signing agreement after agreement that Allura sends his way, from the right to weaponry to the permission to travel in certain colonies. Thankfully, her influence runs a long way. By the end of the year, the day rolls around for his departure.

Saying goodbye to Pidge is harder the second time. She’s small in his arms, their body suspended in time for god knows however long. When they pull apart, she isn’t smiling.

“I’m giving you a direct link to me. Call me when you need anything.”

“Oh jeez,” Lance wheezes, but he’s out of breath from holding back the sob in his throat. “Does that mean 2AM drunken phone calls are okay now?”

“Fuck,” she cracks, a smile pulling at her lips. “You bastard. If you call for shitty reasons, I’ll come up there myself to kick your ass.”

“Only if you can find me.”

“I have my ways.”

“Disgusting.”

Pidge laughs and Lance grips that tune tightly in his chest.

When Lance breaks Earth’s gravitational pull, he calls Pidge.

“Wow, that was quick—”

“Thanks.” The ship rattles with the force of the atmosphere. “For everything.”

She doesn’t respond right way, the silence of space comforting him.

“Don’t come back,” is all the okay he needs before he’s gunning it.

\--

Six years fly by without much to show for it. Lance’s ship has become a near hermit’s nest, beer cans stacked haphazardly by his bedside and littering the living quarter, rolling under his feet from his place in the cockpit. His dashboard is a mess of photographs and forgotten bounty logs. He continues to stare at the picture of their smiling faces, enjoying the bright colors in contrast from the monotonous blue of the hologram files that float around him. Lance leans forward to stick the photo in the windshield corner. He likes how it looks there and moves to fall back into a nap when one of the screens begins to blink red rapidly, a small alarm trailing behind in.

He scrambles up, grabbing the file and staring at the face of the bounty before him, rough as if he’s been scarred by a beast. Despite the rough look, he’s only a low hit thief, the cost of his capture only resting to a cozy 5,000 credits. “A joke is what that is,” Lance mutters to himself before scrolling back up to look at the face once more. He’s recently been spotted on the scavenging colony of Llilia, a couple minutes from Lance current place, floating aimlessly in space.

 _Money is money_ , he thinks before flipping off the autopilot and steering in the direction of coordinates flashing angrily at him.

\--

Llilia is a heavily militarized colony surrounded by junk. On the one hand, they don’t get much tourism in a place that looks like a literal wreckage yard. On the other, it’s a good way to steer away unwanted guests. When Lance reaches the gate, it takes thirty minutes for him to be verified and other for his ship to be inspected for he’s allowed to park it at the docks.

The guards look imposing, eyeing him as he kicks some cans out of his way to exit the ship. The smell hits him immediately, thick and uneven, almost as if there were invisible patches of smog. Lance quickly realizes that even the guards are wearing facial protection and makes sure to grab his own piece before leaving them behind him. Although the air is filtered out, it feels thin running through the mask as he makes his way past the mental hoops that is the security post before he’s allowed to enter the hub.

It’s more cramped inside than it looks on the outside. There’s something resembling a city, flooded with people clumped in a mess of bodies. There’s no clear common race, everything blended together with different heights and shapes. It reminds Lance of the old trading posts he used to lurk, waiting for an opportunity for work. When his feet collide with something solid, his eyes glued to the world around him, Lance almost kisses the ground. It takes a few juts of his arm to straighten up his balance, looking back at the body wrapped in rags that lies on the floor. He hadn’t even seen him before tripping. The alien looks at Lance, narrowing its multiple eyes before turning around and resuming what he guesses was sleep. The crowd keeps moving, flowing around them both as Lance stands up.

That’s the catalysis for Lance to realize there are countless of similar poorly dressed people on the ground, cowering in corners behind shops and laying quiet on the ground. Some have cans in front of them and others don’t even seem try. It unsettles Lance, makes him feel open in a claustrophobic space. In his state, he nearly misses it, the fleeting movement in the corner of his eye before someone is bumping into him. The collision is harsh, knocking Lance off his feet again as he turns to face the offender. The offender does the same and their eyes meet and as Lance nears the ground he recognizes the face of his bounty.

“Wait,” he shouts as lands, quickly using his hands to bounce back up. The alien doesn’t so much as turn back, making a break for it. “Fuck.”

And the chase begins.

Lance breaks into a sprint, jumping over the body he fell over earlier, bobbing his way through the thick crowd, keeping the blue hair of his bounty in sight. The criminal makes a sharp turn up ahead and Lance mimics it, following him down a dimly lit corridor. He’s only a couple of seconds behind but the hushed whispers in the distance force him to slow down.

Quieting his footsteps, Lance edges towards the corner that leads into a dead end. From his place, he can see his bounty, standing out of breath with something glowing in his hands, a bright gold that illuminates his face but continues to cast the stranger beside him in shadow. The other man is covered, unlike Lance, the air mask blocks the entirety of his face. They’re talking but just low enough for Lance’s translator to not pick it up.

The bounty looks around, nerves obvious even on his alien face. It perplexes Lance. The stranger is large, but no larger than him and he isn’t standing in a threatening position. The glowing object trades hands before disappearing in a knapsack.  Lance figures this is a good of a chance as any, reaching down to pull his pistol from it’s holster.

“Freeze!” He shouts, turning the corner and startling the two. He tries to ignore the growing red on his cheeks at the opportunity to yell out something as lame as _freeze_ , but before he can think about it, the blue alien makes a charge for him, ducking low suddenly and making a sweep for his legs. Lance moves out of the way just barely, back colliding with the wall of the towering building.

He doesn’t lose the grip of his gun though, and clicks the option for stun, firing twice at the bounty. He misses the first one when the male jumps but the second lands square in his abdomen, knocking the man prone. Lance turns around, looking for the other stranger with his gun raised but finding nothing. All that stands before him is the dead-end wall, almost mocking him.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Lance hisses, staring at the now empty space. There’s only one entrance and Lance was fighting in the middle of it. He looks around, hunting for a pothole or _something_ but they’re in a floating junkyard in space. “I don’t have time for this.”

Turning around, he reaches for his cuffs, locking them onto the wrists of the bounty before pulling him upright. The alien still looks out of it, his eyes half lidded and his feet dragging as Lance pulls him towards the nearest station. The guard, the same one who checked him out when he was docking, looks less than impressed to see him again.

“Lance McClain, bounty hunter. Here to collect.” He hands over the hologram expressing the amount and the photo of the alien beside him.

The guard looks it over for an eerie amount of time before slowly nodding, signaling other guards to remove the cuffs and bring the bounty to a cell. The guard then reaches up to take Lance’s card, scanning it quickly before typing in. When he gets the card back, a +2,500 credits greets him.

“Wait,” he grumbles, his mood already plummeting. “This is half of what was promised.”

“This bounty was posted nearly a year ago. _You’re too late_ ,”

Lance grits his teeth. “Oh, I wasn’t aware there was a _time limit._ ”

“Sir,” the guard begins, voice grating his nerves. “You must understand that his crime level decreased significantly over the year, and thus so did his bounty.”

“But—”

Lance is cut off by the blackout. In fact, everyone is as all the lights within Llilia suddenly blink off. There’s an odd silence, the same one in space except this time Lance finds no comfort. “Don’t tell me that the air systems just went off.”

It’s dark but the glow from Lance’s mask allows him to see the panic growing on the security man’s face as he frantically hits the keys on his comm. “We’re in a complete black out.”

“Oh great.” Lance wants to get the fuck out of here. Without much more conversation, he quickly exits the station. The only thing is that upon entering the city again, his feet don’t make contact with the ground. Rather, he begins to float.

“Shit,” he hisses, staring at the frantic movement around him. Fear has consumed the crowd, bumping against each other as they fly off, scrambling for purchase. The small jets on Lance’s back activate and he uses the force to propel him towards the dock.

There are no guards waiting for him by the time he reaches his ship. It’s only when he’s sitting in the pilot chair that he realizes the gates are locked shut. He slouches in his chair, about to let his head smash into his dashboard when the familiar sound of another aircraft snags his attention. Suddenly, a shadow casts over him, darkening the already dark area until even the glow of his mask doesn’t help. Lance looks up, watches the massive rock of a ship crash into the gates, bending the metal as if it were nothing before exiting the loading dock.

Lance starts up his ship, already hearing the power returning to the colony in the form of blaring alarms. He gets himself off the ground, following the exit of the one before him. As soon as he’s passed the gates, he gets a glimpse of the cockpit of the other vanishing craft. Inside sits the same stranger he saw in the alleyway. He isn’t the only one curious because for a moment, Lance swears their eyes meet before the blasters on the bigger of the two activate and the ship blinks out of sight.

Unsure of himself, Lance comes back to the screaming alarms behind him and decides the best course of action would be to not be here when an investigation occurred. He kicks the gas of his cruiser before making for as far away from the colony as his fuel will allow.

\--

Turns out, that’s not far at all as Lance finds himself on YYAYY, a small desert planet, equivalently the size of Earth’s moon, filling up his tank. He stares in horror, boots buried in the sand as he watches the credit cost increase before his eyes as his tank fills. He’s so pissed he almost misses the incoming call from Pidge.

“What,” he answers curtly, immediately regretting it when Pidge doesn’t respond right away. “Sorry, shitty day. You okay?”

“No,” Pidge whispers. “I’m not. Have you seen the newest bounty feed?”

“You know I never check those—”

“ _Lance._ ” There’s a desperation in her voice that Lance doesn’t recognize, makes that sick feeling he felt back in Llilia crawl into his belly again and settle. He pulls out the pump, ignoring the -1000 credits flashing on his card as he hops in. He makes his way quickly to the dashboard, opening up his feed.

“Hurry up,” Pidge whispers in his ear and Lance mistypes his password three times.

When it finally goes through, the system flashes to life, showing a list of bounties freshly updated today, starting from the lowest and ending at the highest.  Pidge seems to be able to read his mind. “Scroll down,” she says as Lance’s fingers twitch on the keys.

He does, scrolling down until he hits the third to highest bounty and drops his card, deaf to it clinking to the ground. There, with a shining 750,000 credit under the picture is a face Lance swore he would never forget. A face he’s long etched into his memory since his first blunders as a pilot.

Hunk Garrett’s face, although nothing like the smiling boy in the photograph adjacent to the screen, stares back at him.

“Lance,” Pidge calls but her voice sounds blurred, like he’s underwater and nothing makes sense except for the fact that he can’t breathe. “Lance.”

He can’t bring himself to answer.


	2. Jazz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What?” Hunk managed out, eyes darting around to each solemn face. Lance was looking away. “What’s going on?”
> 
> Allura turned to face him, her expression unreadable.
> 
> “It’s over. We won.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit, is this an update? who even reads my stuff anymore. wild.
> 
> unbeta'd as usual.

The war ended silently.

There was no explosion of color, no sudden acts of heroics or fallen sacrifices. There was no blood uprising, no burning ships or catastrophic destruction. There wasn’t even a need to form Voltron.

Hunk remembered waking up in a sweat every morning, anxiety written into his blood like a script that demanded his attention. It wore on him, wore on all of them, obvious from their soft movements and the quiet conversations they would whisper to one another with stolen glances. Every moment spent was in fear, or in planning or in training, or in glances, or in quiet, or in glances, and Lance would sometimes smile and for a moment Hunk thought it was alright. That despite the constant loop of fighting or dying, maybe he could keep this up for another year or so. Keep standing tall for the glory if they held each other’s gaze every night. He had let himself catch rest with that thought drifting in the sea of his mind, bobbing unevenly. He would make it as long as their glances intertwined in place of their fingers.

One day, Hunk had woken up and it was over.

His eyes opened and there was no alarm, just the gentle hum of the castle in action. By the time Hunk was gathered into the command room, everyone was waiting for him.

“What?” Hunk managed out, eyes darting around to each solemn face. Lance was looking away. “What’s going on?”

Allura turned to face him, her expression unreadable.

“It’s over. We won.”

* * *

 

No matter how many times Lance scrolls up and then down, Hunk’s face greets him.

There’s no smile etched there, the lip splitting grin is replaced with a straight line. He’d be nearly unrecognizable if it weren’t for the burning confidence in his eyes, a flame that started near the end of the war. Lance had watched it grow and flourish, to the point where Hunk had no problem breaking formation if there would be a better outcome.

What was once a spark now is an inescapable fire.

Lance hasn’t bothered to move his cruiser from the dwarf planet, parked just outside the only city populated by tourists on this desert speck. The sand clings to the small cracks in the windows, creeps through the air from the vents and brushes against his eye. Still, his gaze remains sharp on that face, blinking to life next to the old photograph on his dash.

“I just don’t get it,” he mutters. The gentle hum of the ship is his only response, Pidge completely silent on the other end. The two sit like that for a while, unsure if their voice would break the spell and the reality would really set in.

“I haven’t heard from Hunk in years,” Pidge says. Her voice is incredibly soft.

“I,” he hesitates, because when was the last time they reached out to one another? Ten years ago? Even more? “I haven’t heard from him either.”

“I knew he was traveling. I mean, he wasn’t super thrilled about returning at the end.”

“Yeah but,” Lance shrugs to the screen. “I thought he’d be the type to settle down. You know, on a planet with a sun or too.”

“Like you thought _you_ could?”

She’s right. In the beginning, all Lance wanted was a home when the fighting was over. It only took a restless night within the first week back to realize he was sadly mistaken.

“Like I thought we _all_ could.”

“Well,” Pidge laughs, and it’s rough like the sand in his throat. “Look at us. The heroic paladins of Voltron, scattered to the fucking winds.”

Lance turns off the board, tired of looking at a burning memory, before it turns to ash. “Should I contact Allura.”

“Allur—” Pidge stops, her voice dropping. “She must have known. Hunk isn’t a new bounty, he’s a growing one. She had to have known. Fuck.”

“Um, Pidge?”

“Lance, she had to have known. She got you certified for fuck’s sake. She must have purposely pushed us towards that direction because she planned to make us do the work, just like back when we were paladins. We are repeating the exact circumstances that eventually lead to—”

“Pidge.” Lance cuts her sharp, and from her inhale, he thinks she bleeds a little from the wound. “Things are different now. We’re older.”

“Are we really? Lance, look at us. Are we really?”

Lance doesn’t know how to answer that. “I’ll contact Allura once morning hits for her.”

“She’s probably expecting your call.”

“You should sleep. It’s late.”

Silence.

“Sure.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The call ends more abruptly than the fighting did.

* * *

 

“What do we do now?” Hunk asked, because that’s all that’s left to ask.

Allura looked at him sharply, but the relief in her eyes almost seemed cheap against the backdrop of exploding stars.  “Now?” she hummed. “Now we go home.”

Hunk wanted to grit out, _what home?_ The universe became their home, the void of space their bed and the swell of wormholes their family. He couldn’t speak though, not with the way Lance’s eyes lit up at the mention of some place to rest his feet.

Instead, he followed the motions, let Allura guide them through the conferences and the peace treaties and the photographs and the signings.

It took Hunk approximately one year after the fighting fizzled out to realize he had no home and that it was fine. That if his home wasn’t a place, he’d make one for himself inside his body. He’d use his bones for structure and put his hands to work. He’d find his purpose or he’d make one himself.

And that’s all there is to it.

* * *

 

The convenient store is open by the time Lance stumbles in, slightly disoriented from finishing the last of his stocked beer. The store owner stands quiet, illuminated by the flickering neon lights, the yellow tint of the bounty board glowing behind his register. Lance has noticed that more and more of these places have been appearing, catering to people like him but keeping their nose upturned.

This owner is no different, slowly narrowing his single eye as Lance weaves his way through the aisles. He’s almost tempted to tell him _fuck off._ Instead, he snags a couple of cans with symbols he’s grown quite used to tracing with his index finger in the deep recesses of space, a few snacks and a lighter. By the time he reaches the register, the bounty names click and shift to refresh, and Lance’s eyes immediately land on Hunk’s name, bright against the yellow background.

Lance doesn’t even notice the items being scanned, his thoughts wandering on how he hasn’t noticed. It’s been _years_ , him and the list have grown as intimate as lovers. Or did he simply choose to ignore it? That his mind never registered that it was his _Hunk_ , the own yellow paladin with a bounty on his head fitted to wear a crown.

The store owner hisses at him, snapping Lance back into reality as he quickly scrambles for his card, watching the credits shrink before his eyes. He doesn’t thank the alien as he grabs everything off the counter, and when he reaches the front, he kicks over the plastic sign in childish anger.

* * *

 

“What are you planning to do?” Hunk had asked him, offhandedly as he wrapped bandages around his knuckles. The ugly splotches of purple and yellow hidden by an offensive white. Lance watched the motion with a near fondness. He wanted to brush his lips against each bruise, feel how warm the skin lay under his mouth.

“For what?” Lance’s eyes slowly trailed back up to Hunk’s face. Hunk was avoiding his gaze.

“When you get back home?”

“Oh,” Lance paused, leaning his head back to rest against the cool metal with his back. His cheek felt unbearably hot. “I don’t know. Find out where the family is? Reconnect and all that.”

Hunk laughed at his face. “Don’t act like you don’t know exactly where everyone is. I see you check up on them.”

Lance smiled sheepishly. “Well, then you already know.”

“You know, for someone who’s been fighting for decades, you don’t look a day over twenty.” Lance stared, watching Hunk, finished with one hand, turning to the other. His arms strained under his shirt as he worked.

“Shit, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Then don’t.”

“What—?”

It was faster than lightening, than the red lion soaring through space, faster than Lance felt laser burn through his skin. Hunk kissed him, lips chapped and rough but his hand was tender, finding home on Lance’s cheek, the bandages helping grip as sweat gathered between their skin. He was too slow, Hunk pulling back, embarrassed and shy.

Lance decided to take his advice, stop thinking all together before returning with a kiss of his own.

* * *

 

“You signed up for it, didn’t you?”

Pidge’s voice is unnaturally cruel in the morning, Lance hadn’t even made it to his makeshift bed in the back of the ship, having slept on the main piloting chair. His legs feel cramped and numb, bent towards his chest and hanging loose off the seat.

“What are you screeching about?”

Pidge all but growls at him “I’m not screeching. Don’t lie to me, Lance. I saw your name. You signed up for his bounty.”

Lance sits up, using all the effort he could swell up, only to see a bright piece of orange paper sticking to the front of his ship. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No,” Pidge answers unnecessarily, “I know how to read. It’s right in front of my fucking eyes.”

“Pidge, not that,” Lance groans, standing up and kicking his door open. The whole machine rattles disapprovingly. He clicks the communicator in his ear before stepping out into the desert climate. He was still parked near the store, it’s offensive neon blinking faint with the sun for this system out and about. Walking around, Lance reaches up to snatch the parchment from the window, staring down at the telltale Galran lettering of a fine due to the Intergalactic Station positioned just outside this galaxy. “I just got a fucking ticket.”

Pidge doesn’t laugh immediately, but when she does, it’s a slow build to hysteria.

“Are you,” wheezing. “Oh god, just ask Keith to whip it.”

“Fuck that,” Lance stares at the paper, bewildered. “I just didn’t know the Galra unit was positioned this far out. I’m in the middle of fuck-nowhere.”

“I can’t believe you just got ticketed by the equivalent of a Galra mall cop. It’s the second time now isn’t it? Except this one was successful.”

“I was _sleeping_. Injustice!”

“Crocodile tears,” Pidge sighs out, laughter dying down. She sounds young again and Lance likes that. “So, it’s official, huh?”

“Yup,” Lance kicks dust around before folding the archaic ticket and slipping it into his pocket. He gets back into the ship and starts it up. “I figured if anyone deserves to catch him, it should be us.”

“You mean _you_.”

Lance grins. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, Pidgeon.”

“Disgusting. You know I wouldn’t abandon you over something like this.”

The carrier picks up air as it slowly begins to hover off the ground. Lance switches to departure mode, watching it active it’s particle barrier to ready against fighting the gravitational pull of the dwarf planet.

“It’s not just someone anymore. It’s not just a bounty-nobody. It’s Hunk we’re talking about.”

“Even more reason to stick together.”

Lance watches his ship break atmosphere.

“Even more reason to find him first.”

* * *

 

Hunk counts the number of vessels like sheep. Their lights off set with the glittering stars behind him and give him the distinct memory of planes and landing strips. When he reaches thirty, he moves from behind the alley, following the winding street paths until he’s standing in front of a bar, bright purple buzzing at him against the rain.

He pulls up the hood of his cloak higher, checks his flanks before knocking on the door. When his knuckles wrap, they nearly make no sound against the wood, fingers twitching due to the cold.

And Hunk waits.

The small window slides open and he’s reminded of those medieval taverns as two yellow eyes poke out to look at him. They stare at each other before Hunk cracks and a smile spreads infectiously over his face. The eyes narrow before the window is closed and after a few clicks the door to _Bazaal_ opens unceremoniously to have the unimpressed vision of Sendak staring at him. Hunk thinks he looks bigger from the last time he saw him, despite the empty space where his arm used to be.

There are no words exchanged between them, though a growl echoes out of the bar before Sendak steps aside and allows Hunk in. The place is empty except for the bartender, idly cleaning glasses with a softness the man’s right arm often doesn’t invoke.

Hunk makes his way to the bar, watching as Sendak finds a seat in the distance, against the wall but in perfect vision of the two of them. He feigns disinterest as he hunches over his drink but Hunk knows that as the two of the converse, hardly a drop will be swallowed. Pulling out a stool, Hunk sits directly in front of the bartender, leaning back and shrugging his hood down. Shirogane Takashi takes his time finishing his work before looking up, casting Hunk a smile that has seemed to finally find home on his face.

“You look beat.”

Hunk wants to laugh but instead he takes the drink offered to him. Nothing fancy, probably whatever Shiro still had out after closing but he appreciates it nonetheless. “Things are moving a lot slower than I thought.”

“You’ve got plenty of time.”

Hunk’s hands rest near Shiro’s on the bar. Despite the scars on both of them, Shiro’s look aged, hardy against time. Ever since the black lion was handed to Keith, the level of quintessence he was exposed to decreased rapidly compared to the rest of them. Shiro, albeit slower than the rest of the human race, _ages_. His body doesn’t give much away, but it’s in his eyes. It’s in the tired way he lets Sendak win arguments when he thinks Hunk isn’t looking, it’s in the quiet moments where he rubs the patch of grafted skin between the prosthetic and his bicep. It’s in the way he’s looking at Hunk now, like he’s proud of something, like Hunk is worth much of anything after the war and Hunk thinks that if he wasn’t seeing blue in his dreams, he might have fallen in love.

“Time’s not the issue,” he mutters after some time, turning back to his drink, childishly. “I think I ran into Lance.”

Shiro doesn’t look surprised, he hardly does. “You knew?”

“I get a lot of bounty hunters here. He’s infamous.”

Hunk’s confusion must read easy on his face.

“He once crashed his carrier ship through a drive-thru to trap a bounty.” Hunk snorts but so does Sendak, who stares embarrassingly at them at being caught listening.

“Yeah, that sounds right.” Hunk finishes his drink. “You haven’t spoken?”

Shiro shakes his head. “The only one who knows I’m here is you.”

“But, you’ve been keeping tabs.”

“Old habits die hard.”

He gets up, pulling his hood up again as Shiro takes his glass to wash. “There’s still more to do. No matter who it is, I can’t afford to be caught.”

Hunk makes his way towards the exit. “I think it matter’s terribly. I think you _want_ him to catch you.”

When he reaches the door, and undoes the couple of locks, letting Sendak pull it open as he turns back to Shiro as if to say goodbye, he’s interrupted. “He won’t disappoint, you know.”

Hunk rolls his eyes before stepping back out into the rain, eyes catching the vessels flying past in flickering colors. “He never does.”

And like that, Hunk vanishes for the second time that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bogboogie on twitter and sighing a lot


	3. These Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the paladins died years ago.”
> 
> Mary’s smile drops as Lance begins to walk away. “How can you be so sure?!” She calls to his back. 
> 
> “Because,” Lance replies with a wave of his hand, never turning around as he gets further and further away. “They killed themselves off, one by one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not angry, you're angry.  
> thank you for all the lovely comments, it means a lot to me and pushes me forward. i appreciate it so much, it's almost embarrassing.

O FIM DO MUNDO III 

 

“What do you mean it’s empty?” 

Lance stares, bewildered as the station cook gives him an unimpressed looked. She’s holding his card between her fingers, a carelessness that sets his nerves on fire as he tries to keep a calm voice. “Are you sure? I just finished a job.”

“I’m sorry,” she replies, as if reading from a script. Her apron is covered in bright contrasting splashes of color that has Lance thinking of Hunk, much to his displeasure. “You simply do not have enough credits.”

“Look, ma’am,” he sighs, resting his elbows on the counter with wide, childish eyes. “I just want a sandwich, nothing fancy.” 

Her expression remains blank and the people behind Lance, a line that has grown past the sidewalk they’re waiting on into the street, start groaning in protest over his reluctance to leave. “I’m sorry, you simply—”

“You know,” Lance cuts, “I’m an old paladin of Voltron.”

That sparks her interest, and soon the cook is taking in his appearance, moving from the unshaven scruff on his face to the worn leather on his body. When she finally meets his eyes again, her expression has fallen once more. “Aren’t you a little young?”

“I’m as young as you need me to be, darling.”

That finally sets the group behind him off and before he’s shoved away from the line, he makes quick work to grab his card. He’s released by a dozen hands onto the sidewalk, nearly getting run over by a cyclist as tries to get up.

“I didn’t want your shitty food anyway!” He calls behind him, ignoring the laughter of some of the customers as he dusts himself off. Patting himself clean, he spots his card under his shoe. “Shitty credit, shitty diet it seems.” Lance picks it up, looking at his name blinking dully against the black backdrop. Turning it over, he’s greeted by the number 4, a pleasant reminder of his current financial state. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, maneuvering his way through the crowd in motion until he stumbles into a phone booth. He slides the card through the machine, flinching at the sharp ding as his amount drops and quickly dials.

It takes a couple of rings but Pidge’s face appears on screen, her hair ruffled and her face void of her signature glasses. It’s dark around her and Lance feels sheepish for ignoring the time difference between planets. She yawns.

“Morning, Pidge. Sorry to wake you.”

“How bad is it?”

Lance looks around the glass booth, embarrassed. No one spares him a glance as they move around the machine. “I couldn’t afford a sandwich at Peze’s.”

Pidge grimaces. “Don’t you always go there?”

“It’s a good chain. They implement that food goo so it’s mostly a nostalgic factor. That’s not the point here. I need some jobs.”

Pidge is already pulling up the bounty board in front of him, the familiar face of his old best friend briefly flashing before their eyes as she hurriedly scrolls down to the smaller fishes.

“Where are you now?” She asks, her voice thick with sleep. Lance feels guilt swell in him as he leans against the cool glass, enjoying how it contrasts the heat building in his temples. 

“Sriia, on Mars.” 

Pidge continues to scroll, reaching for a cup beside her bed and taking a sip. Lance, in horror, realizes it must be old coffee she’s had lying around for moments like these. 

“How about this guy?” She turns the screen for him to see, an alien staring back with six eyes and no obvious mouth. He looks suspicious in the picture, dressed in an oversized hat and a trench coat. He reminds Lance of the old spies in the films his uncle used to marathon. “He’s worth only 15,000 credits but that should tide you over as you hunt around for more…information.”

No one really has much to say about the pause. Lance wants to ask how Pidge has been sleeping, despite his rude awakenings but he’s afraid that if he opens that door, Pidge will demand the opening of another.

“Looks good.”

“He was last seen in the Fallo district, only 30 miles away from you.”

“Sounds like he’s headed into the capital.”

“Easy to get lost in the big crowd.”

“Great,” Lance groans. “Grunt work.” 

Pidge rolls her eyes, shutting off the screen after a quick succession of code. “I sent the information to your ship. And don’t complain, I thought you loved this detective stuff.”

“Yeah, maybe 20 years ago.”

A ding echoes in the booth, signaling to them that the call was about to be abruptly cut short without adding any more credits. Pidge grins at him. “That’s hardly a day ago to us.”

“If anything, you make it sound like we’re vampires.”

“Aren’t we though?” Pidge says, falling back on her bed. She looks comfy, in loose fitting clothes, laying directly under the spinning fan on the ceiling of her room. 

“No,” Lance says but the call is over and he’s speaking to no one but himself. 

* * *

Lance opens the door to his carrier and beer cans fall out in a symphony of clattering regret. He stares at his feet as a couple roll under the ship and a few more makes its way into the parking lot. No one is around to see his shame, but redness still colors his cheeks. He cleans up quickly, getting rid of the obvious ones and emptying out any visible trash. When he’s finally happy with his small adventure in cleaning up, he boots up the ship and opens the data log Pidge sent him.

ASSA LIR flashes in bold yellow letters, followed by a picture of the bounty and a sweet 15,000 credits under that. Lance takes a moment to zoom into his mouthless face and then the first three letters of his name to get a hallow laugh.

“Alright, you bastard. Let’s play detective.”

The trip to the capital only takes him an hour but the parking hunt lasts for three. With the size of the capital, cars have been reintroduced and carrier ships, other than a few spare designated parking slots scattered around the city, are suspended to the outskirts. At the mark of the third hour, Lance considers nosediving into another ship if only to say he found the parking before letting death take him swiftly.

It's in his mourning on how to tell Pidge he’s met his untimely fate when he sees a cruiser down the line lift from a spot. 

“Is that you, God?” Lance whispers, eyes widen with effort as the space frees up. Moving quickly, Lance takes the parking and as he lands as smoothly as he can, he hears angry shouting from behind him. Packing his gun inside his jacket, Lance exits the ship with a little jump of practiced ease, closing the door behind him and thumb scanning the lock. The shouting gets louder now that he’s outside on the busy street and when his view is finally free from being blocked by his ship, he realizes another is waiting. 

A group of nobodies, but Lance figures he also falls under that category, angrily shakes their hands at him. One even hops out of their ship, barelling towards him with heavy footsteps. Despite his thick stature, he measures a foot shorter than the ex-paladin when they’re standing face to face.

Lance waits.

“Ya know, we saw that spot first.”

“Uh huh,” Lance nods, already following where this conversation is going to end. 

“ _ And _ ,” the man goes on, snarling as he waves two sets of arms around before crossing them in what he must have thought looked like a menacing fashion. The only thing is Lance has  _ literally been in a war _ so he finds it cute if anything. “It’s common curtousy here at the capital to call dibs.”

“Dibs?”

“Yeah, dibs. It’s a rule. Old as time.”

“Old as time?”

“Ya dumb or somethin’? It’s from the Voltron war.”

“Uh huh.”

Lance remembers sprouting about dibs in his younger years. Who knew it would come back to bite his ass well and good. 

“Listen, human.”

“Oh, that’s sounding a bit racist.”

“ _ Listen _ , we aren’t lookin’ for a fight. Why don’t ya take your  _ 10-credit _ cruiser and find a better spot on the outskirts, huh? Somethin’ more safe, if ya catch my drift.”

Lance is starting to get bored with this conversation. In fact, he has been bored since he turned off the engine. “I’d love to pick up what you’re putting down and all, but don’t you look familiar.”

“Excuse me?”

Lance leans back on his ship, making sure to look as casual as he can, scanning the busy streets around them. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen your face. On the bounty boards. Yeah! I remember now.”

The connection isn’t lost on the man and Lance watches as his green face visibly pales. It’s obvious now, that the threats won’t work on him, that Lance is one of those assholes with a little piece of paper that shouts to the heaven that maybe, sometimes, he’s above the law of the land. 

“I-I think you’re confused.”

“Really? Oh, I was so sure,” he shrugs. 

The man takes a step back. “Ya know what? You’re new to the city, take it as a gift!”

“You mean it?” he asks, innocently batting his eyelashes as the man backs into his ship, getting confused looks from the now quiet passengers. He whispers to them hurriedly before they all look a lot more somber.

“Ya, uh. Have a nice day.” And the ship kicks off, sailing past in an unfavorable speed and vanishing into the night. Lance waits a couple of seconds before straightening up with a sigh. 

“Well, that was no fun.”

* * *

 

He can’t afford a hotel room with a whopping 2 credits left in his account so he’s resigned to sleeping in his carrier tonight. It’s not a problem for him as much as an annoyance. He’s already dreaming of a soft bed and a warm bath but is immediately dashed when the coordinates that Pidge sent him for the likely hideout of one ASS something turns up to be an empty lot. 

There’s a sign posted outside the perimeter, blinking in a couple languages before landing on one he’s familiar with. 

_ MOLD INFESTATION. REMODELING IN PROCESS. DAY 4. _

_ Great _ , he thinks to himself. Wherever ASS McGee is now, it’s probably unmarked from his usual pattern. It’s too expensive to call Pidge now for more recon work so it’s up to his own abilities.  _ Just like the old days _ .

Lance starts with the small bars in the area, crawling from one to another with a holo picture of the bounty to show to the tenders. Most of them shake their head, though Lance doubts it’s from a lack of ignorance and for this weird need to protect one of their own. Small fish swim together to make the perception of them bigger.

He knows the feeling intimately.

When darkness finally stretches over the sky and the nightlife lights begin, Lance finds himself staring at a small diner, basically an open bar where the only seats were the exposed ones at the counter. He finds one for himself and when a Balmeran waitress walks over, he flashes his card, sure for her to take in the amount.

“A coffee please.”

She nods, making quick work of it before it’s placed in front of him. It’s barely warm and Lance can see an interesting amount of graininess at the bottom that has his smile falling a little to the wayside. The waitress is watching him with amusement though, so he puts on a brave face and takes a sip. It’s disgusting.

“It’s delicious,” he says with a heavy tongue, doing his best to slosh it around in his mouth rather than swallow it, hoping in some magical way, it would evaporate before making its way down his throat. The waitress laughs at his misfortunate. That warms him more than the coffee because she sounds just like—

“I haven’t seen a human this far from the shopping district in a long time.”

Lance smiles, though he knows it must fall short. She mirrors it. “What can I say, I’m a hunter for adventure.”

“I know you’re a hunter of a different kind.”

He narrows his eyes, checking the customers beside him who are whispering to one another. Openly meeting his eyes, they get up and leave the diner. “Word travels fast, huh?”

“You don’t really make yourself inconspicuous. Asking around, using a bounty photo. It’s pretty obvious.”

Lance sighs, taking another sip and instantly regretting it. “And I’m guessing I’m not the first?”

The waitress shakes her head, and Lance catches her name tag as she moves closer.  _ Mary  _ in bold red colors, hand painted. She leans against the counter in front of him, finding her own seat behind the bar. It’s just the two of them now.

“Old Assa is known pretty well around here. Tons of small scale bounty hunters like yourself come looking for him every once in a while. You guys roll in like the seasons.”

“Does that make me a midnight’s summer breeze?”

“I don’t get it.”

Lance smiles. “Me neither. So, I’m guessing he’s a slippery guy if he’s managed to dodge so many of us.” 

“He’s got friends in high places.”

“How high we are talking here?”

Mary grins and it’s infectious. Lance tries to fight it off but he can feel the crinkling around his eyes. “Very high. Mayor high.”

That peaks Lance’s interest. “How does a small-time ransom thief share inner circles with the mayor?”

Mary rubs the back of her neck, before leaning in to whisper, “Apparently he’s a go between. For someone much bigger.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t know much about the bigger one, but there’s one interesting fact about him. He shares it with you.”

Lance’s grin is sleazy. “Endless amount of charm?”

Mary shakes her head, holding back a small laugh. “No,” she leans in further, her lips a ghost next to his ear. “He’s human.”

Lance’s heart stops. 

There are a total of five humans in space. Shiro, who is living his guilt-ridden life off in god knows where. Keith, who was forced into the political limelight with Allura’s encouragement. Lance,  _ of course. _ Matt Holt, who’s found solace in finding out where the fuck Shiro went, and—

“Are you sure?” Lance’s voice gives away no curiosity but his heart is honest, beating away in his chest like a monster who wails terribly in the night.

Mary leans back, picking up his now empty cup. He hadn’t realized he finished it during their conversation. “Definitely. I served him once. Big appetite, brilliant brown eyes. He was dazzling.”

“I fucking bet,” Lance whispers under his breathe. 

Does that mean Hunk is around, right here in the capital of Mars? What’s he doing with a small fry like Assa? What’s he planning? 

Lance gets up. “How much for the coffee?”

“Consider it free with the information.”

He stops from pulling his card out, eyeing her carefully from his place across the counter. His perception of her has changed. “Why the sudden generosity for a stranger?”

“Can’t I be grateful to serve a paladin of Voltron?”

Lance blinks, shock ripping through his calm exterior as he gawks. Mary smiles at him. “Not many humans in space. I just get the feeling.” 

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the paladins died years ago.”

Mary’s smile drops as Lance begins to walk away. “How can you be so sure?!” She calls to his back. 

“Because,” Lance replies with a wave of his hand, never turning around as he gets further and further away. “They killed themselves off, one by one.”

And with that, Lance waits until he’s safely back in his ship for the panic to set in.

* * *

 

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Hunk asked, his shoulder warm against the flesh of Lance’s, side by side, laying in the observatory of the castle. 

“For what?” Lance knew  _ for what _ but he couldn’t bring himself to say it on his own.

“For everything. For the war to be over, for us to turn thirty, fuck. For us to turn fifty! For you to see your family, for me to find one. How long?”

Lance wanted to tell him that he didn’t know, that no one knew but at least they had each other in all of this. That the quiet nights, the brief pauses in all the violence, that they spent together meant just enough for him not to dwell on it.

Apparently it wasn’t the same for Hunk.

“I just get the feeling,” the bigger man continued. “That we’re going to be aimless in the end. Be a piece of nothing, floating around in the world we made. I don’t think there’s anything scarier.”

Lance looked at him, contorting his body until they were face to face. He feels the warm puff of Hunk’s breath on his cheeks, the heated gaze of confusion and maybe something else. He imagined Hunk’s body then, blown bloody on the battle field and unmoving, frozen like his age in the empty space, impossibly far and yet close enough to touch. “I can think of one.”

“Well,” Hunk murmured, turning away from him. “That makes one of us.”

* * *

 

Lance wakes up with a bitterness in his mouth that sounds like the word  _ Liar. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for more space cowboys and hance, yell at me on twitter @bogboogie


	4. A Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ll show you. Once this war is over.”  
> Hunk agreed. What’s better than a secret between friends?  
> And the war stopped.  
> But the war never ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, guess who still updates  
> :shrug emoji:  
> thanks for all the positive comments, i reread them all to get this chapter out.

“I’ve got a secret,” Lance whispered in Hunk’s ear, barely able to contain the laughter that threatened to burst out. “And it starts with L.”

“Is it,” Pidge mocked from behind her computer, eyes trained on the small simulator running. Hunk gently pushed Lance away, felt himself grew hot from the warm breath against his ear. “Lance is an idiot? Because that’s no secret.”

“Fucking wow,” Lance bit back, leaning away at the other end of the couch. His limbs stretched long and found themselves on Hunk’s lap, something he didn’t mind. “It’s cooler than your shitty joke, Pidge.”

Pidge rolled her shoulders, barely breaking from her concentration as she typed away.

“What is it?” Hunk asked, because Lance was many things and one of them was wondrous, so the interest is piqued the moment his lips part. Lance looked up at him, eyes sparkling.

“I’ll show you. Once this war is over.”

Hunk agreed. What’s better than a secret between friends?

And the war stopped.

But the war never ended.

* * *

 

The Capital of Mars is a mess, parading around like some sort of New York-style city. It’s as if they picked up a magazine, saw a picture of what traffic is supposed to look like and emulated every detail of it on the red-sanded landscape.

Hunk likes its faux clutter.

It takes him a moment to find his footing again, the mild difference in gravity, the sheer amount of _everything_ moving around him. His eyes struggle to find a purchase until eventually the streets begin to look familiar. The bright lettering of old diners, misplaces bars and small speakeasies blister into his vision.

The old meeting place had been destroyed, something about _mold_ in _space_ just relies itself over his communicator in quick succession. The thing about Mars though is the dark corners are as endless as the people who’ve migrated here. It doesn’t take Hunk much time to quickly pick a new location and discreetly send it out over a secure network.

He does this while waiting in line for Pete’s sandwiches.

He does this while he watches Lance from the corner of his eye, unaware of their own proximity as he deals with the locals.

He does this as his fingers itch to pull down his hood, to shout _I’m here, Look at me, I’m here!_

But it’s too soon and he has work to do.

* * *

 

“You want to work—as a waiter?”

Lance nods at the alien, sure to open his eyes wide and bat his eyelashes in an overly dramatic display of innocence. “Everyone I talked to says you’re the best eats in all of Mars.”

The manager blinks his sets of eyes, skin taking on a bashful blue color as they shyly look away. “Well,” they grunt, “folks ain’t never wrong. And I never had a human before.”

“That’s right, I’ll bring in the curious.”

Eight eyes narrow skeptically. “If yer lookin’ for coin, there’s plenty of other more…savory places for someone like yerself. What’s yer angle?”

Lance moves for the kill. “I heard along the grapevine you had a room available up top. You don’t even have to pay me the wage, I need a place to stay.”

The manager strokes their forearm, lost in thought before finally a grin splits their face. It’s terrifying, Lance is mildly aroused. “Alright, human. Yer lucky, got yerself a place above Sskaika’s Bar and Grill. Work starts tomorrow. I expect ya bright and early, ya hear?”

Lance mock salutes, only stopping when a small flimsy key is handed to him and he’s lead to the stairway on the side of the building. The small suitcase’s wheels squeak as he pulls it along, lugging it up the steps with practiced ease. His smile doesn’t fall until he’s safely locked the door behind him and the blaring sun of Mars sets behind a small crack in the dusty curtains.

He sighs, dropping the suitcase to run fingers tightly through his hair, clutching at some of the strands on the back of his neck to ground himself.

“You need to focus,” he whispers, and the dust of the room moves around, as if to agree with him.

Unpacking is relatively easy, the board goes up, the photos and the pins, the reds and blues of strings connecting seemingly trivial events into a grand map of something Lance can’t quite understand just yet. And in the center, a picture of the three of them from his dashboard, a bright yellow pin above Hunk’s head with no string attached.

The bounty picture of Assa has now found a home on the board, his measly bounty jumping high on Lance’s priority list.

The mayor, this bounty and Hunk.

 _It doesn’t make any sense_.

“What’s your motive, big guy?” He says to Hunk, laughing back at him with no strings attached. Lance is starting to think their friendship was very much the same, where he dangled alone, gripping on a string that lead to a shadow of who he thought he l—

A connection crosses his mind like a slash from a blade, sharp and quick to kill his train of thought.

“You can’t be doing this alone, you’re not _stupid_ either. You’d need someone just as smart to keep up.”

Lance jumps to his suitcase, throws the cartoons of cigarettes arounds, pulls out the cartridges of bullets, lady magazines, some misplaced toothbrushes he never bothered to look for, opting to instead just buy another one. It takes him a while, but he finds it, a small black box he struggles to open but when he does, photographs spill out on the dusty wooden floors, falling under the bed, vanishing under the stained rug, hiding beneath his bruising knees.

He collects the ones of them smiling, Shiro laughing at something Pidge said, Keith tripping over himself, Allura wearing the fake mustache he made her for their makeshift Halloween. He takes their photos around Hunk, places their own colored tacks beside them and stares blankly.

 _One of them_ , he thinks, three smiling faces laughing at him innocently. _One of them is in on this._

For prosperities sake, he places a photo of Matt and Pidge, posing dynamically in front of the NASA building before they parted. He slaps a marker on her older brother and carries a string towards Shiro’s black pin, wrapping it around before writing, in rushed cursive ‘ _searching for him?’ ‘found him?’_

He’d need to ask Pidge about it.

Nonetheless, Hunk’s representation remains blank, the connections thinner than the floss he uses in desperation. He’s barren among the growing map of conspiracies, like a beacon in the center, the eye of a storm.

“You bastard,” Lance grits his teeth, pulling the photo and gracelessly ripping their linked shoulders apart, harshly clipping both back onto the board and connecting a string between them. Hunk’s first connection.

‘ _Searching? Hunting?’_

* * *

 

There are three figures carved in every heart. Hunk knows this as an irrefutable truth.

The first, is a memory born of your youth. It carries your memories and your dreams, your aspirations and the color palette of the stars shooting through the sky. It’s a scar that is light but there nonetheless, shallow and stitched up cleanly by the steady hands of age. It’s a reminder more than a threat.

The second is elegant and deep, crafted by yourself with your tongue placed heavy between your teeth, if out of spite. This one is the threat, because it’s not shaped like you. It’s shaped like the idea of you, the thought of you. It comes as a placement for what you thought yourself to be. Sometimes, Hunk thinks his is a caricature of himself pre-war, Garrison uniform on, thoughts jumbled on just passing his classes.

Sometimes, it’s Lance.

And _that’s_ a threat.

The third isn’t so much of a scar, but a tattoo. It’s a premonition, an intricate design that details not only the end, but the desire to end. It’s an unconscious understanding that there is a finite time everyone lives. That despite the illusions of immortality they all face, Hunk knows that the mark expresses the moment his heart will stop and who he will be by then. It’s worse than the second carving, crueler than the first. It’s not a memory or a threat, it’s a _promise_.

What’s more terrifying than being unable to see yourself anymore?

What’s more terrifying than being unable to recognize your own self?

Hunk can see Lance behind his eyelids nearly every night and sees something resembling himself every morning, through the looking glass.

Even that is a reckoning.

* * *

 

“You want to know what happened to Matt?” Pidge’s voice sounds incredulous, quiet against the backdrop of washing dishes and shouting orders. Lance, for the life of him, can’t imagine why they placed the phone dead center in the kitchen, but it’s his break and it’s covered.

“Yeah,” he whispers into the mouthpiece, eyes trained on her live feed on the screen, his body folding to cover as much as possible. “I know he’s like, _older_ now, but he’s been searching for Shiro, right?”

“Ever since he vanished, yeah.” Pidge is pulling up a hologram of what Lance assumes are her notes on Matt, training her attention in an endless stream. “He keeps getting distracted.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Apparently, every time he gets close, something gets in the way that blindsides him and then he’s back to square one.”

 _False clues,_ he thinks, imaging the board and a line appears, coming from Shiro and tacking itself to Matt. _Intentionally avoiding or misleading._ “Sounds awfully shitty.”

“Yeah, Matt often says he’s giving up but then a week later I find him on the third ward of the Sults Belt, a million miles away from his last station, saying something like ‘ _I just know he’s out there, Pidge. And he’s being a fucking bitch about it_.’”

”I can relate,” Lance mumbles before the manger is strolling in, scanning the busy kitchen and spotting him despite how hard Lance works to make himself look small. “Shit, I gotta go.”

Pidge shoots him a quick wave. “I’ll send you his contact.” The screen goes black.

“Lancelot,” their voice booms across the room. Lance puts the phone gently against its hold before turning to them.

“It’s actually just Lance.”

“Nonsense,” his boss says, “Yer needed in the front.”

Lance’s shoulder sag but he follows the call, tightening up the white apron on his waist and making his way back to the craze of lunch shifts. It’s been two days since he’s gotten his position. Two days of working in the day and stalking the streets of the Capital at night. The manager was right, there’s a million bars that scream about HIRING on their windows, but this is the only one Assa had been seen within the last two years. Well, this is the only one that has his apparent favorite dish: a play on chicken and waffles using the protein of some draconic bird Lance wants nothing to do with.

Despite this, there hasn’t been so much of a peep within these couple days, barely a shady figure has entered. If Lance hadn’t learned to make peace with patience long ago, he knows he would have long given up.

“I’m ready to order, sir,” snaps him out of his thoughts. Lance places a smile on his face, leans down and listens to the oblivious touring family, memorizing their order easily enough and just as he’s about to ask if they want anything to drink with it, the bell tolls at the front door.

And in walks the stupidly cheap, small fry bounty of Assa.

“Um sir,” the apparent father seems to look concerned, weirdly enough. Lance hadn’t realized he broke character until he released his white knuckled grip on the cloth that covers the table. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” Lance smiles, eyes turning back to the customers. He finishes their order, keeping track of Assa in his peripheral. The bounty sits in a corner, waves away any waiter who tries to approach him. _He’s waiting for a signal_ , Lance thinks. _But what?_

Assa doesn’t seem to be on high alert. If anything, he looks bored, as if the daily routine always consisted of these waiting interludes. Lance supposes it must be true, Mary’s words ringing true that he isn’t the first bounty hunter to stumble their way into the Capital looking for him. The difference lies in that Lance, with an unshakable confidence, is undoubtedly the best.

Which is why when Assa finally spots him slowly approaching, Lance definitely isn’t surprised by his sudden shriek of” YOU!” before standing up sharply enough to shake the table and make a break for a door.

“Me?” Lance as a moment to question, shocked, until his mind catches up and he’s ripping the apron off in a fuss and bolting after him.

 “Lancelot!” The manager calls as Lance shouts something like “taking my break!” over his shoulder, rushing into the busy streets.

Red sand seems to permanently float in the air as he weaves and bobs between walking civilians, Assa’s tall frame barely remaining in his line of sight.

“Fucking, really?” He groans, breaking into a hard sprint, lucky that he wasn’t dressed as heavy as his first day. Assa seems to have no trouble ducking into alleyways, making quick turns and jumping across fences.

This goes on for longer Lance cares to admit until finally, the bastard turns into a dead end, one Lance was indirectly guiding him too. There’s no escape except the low hanging ceiling of the apartment complex just at the end. But only a fool would climb it, with Lance’s gun in position.

Lance turns the corner, spots Assa at the end of the alley, shifting his many eyes left and right in a near panic.

“Wait,” his voice hoarsely calls to Lance. “I can offer you money. Or information! Surely a bounty hunter like yourself can do better than little old me.”

Lance cracks a smile. “I’ve been waiting to meet you, Assa.”

“Fuck, come on, man!” The alien begs, eyes widening when Lance pulls out his weapon. He shoots both sets of hands in the air in surrender.

“Now,” Lance begins. “You’re—”

“Under arrest,” another voice rings out, positioned on the roof of the apartment. Helmet concealing their face, gun transfixed on Assa as he glances from the stranger to Lance in rapid fire.

“Wait, two?”

“I was here first,” Lance finds himself shouting, feeling slighted. “He’s my right.”

“I doubt a _waiter_ knows how to handle a wanted man,” the stranger mocks. Lance realizes his position and has the mind to go red around the ears.

“Fuck you, I was undercover.”

“Hard at work, I see.”

Assa seems at a loss, watching their argument unfold and slowly brings down his hands, which snaps both their attention back to him and the guns are pointed once more. He pales.

“Don’t move,” they say in sync and Lance is ready to just call it quits and shoot the other bounty hunter too.

“I marked this bounty days ago,” he calls up as the stranger makes a jump to the ground. He’s slimmer than Lance originally thought, covered in some sort of relic of the Voltron war, an armor he hasn’t seen since—

“I simply thought you failed and gave up. It was a week ago, you see—”

“It was _three_ days.”

“Frankly, a pitifully long time.”

“First of all, _fuck_ _you_ —”

“Where did he go?”

That gives Lance pause and the two bounty hunters look around, confused until they spot Assa, having slipped past the both of them and booked it to the end of the alleyway.

“Wait,” the stranger calls out, gun at the ready but Lance doesn’t move.

He sees it, there in the gaps of his vision and the murky background post-rain from the night before. The water is moving.

“He’s camouflaged!” He shouts, a little too late as something impacts the helmet of the masked individual, sending him reeling back and dropping his gun. A footprint makes itself known where a kick must have landed.

“Shit,” Lance swears under his breath before shooting blindly in the area he believes the third party is positioned. He hears the movement more than he can see it, the shuffling of someone dodging out of the way with efficient ease. One shot connects.

It doesn’t matter though because soon, Lance feels as if a sledgehammer has collided with his ribcage, the breath knocked out of him in a sudden force that blacks him out instantly.

He _knows_ that strength.

* * *

 

Lance rouses to the light slapping of his cheek. He doesn’t open his eyes but the first thing he’s aware of is that it’s raining and if this is still Mars, that means the red sand is staining him _so badly right now—_

“Wake up,” a voice calls, probably the one frantically tapping him on the face. “This is no time to catch up on your beauty sleep.”

“Stop,” he groans, eventually opening his eyes and sitting up. It takes him a moment to focus on the helmet of the stranger, a massive red footprint imprinted on front of it.

Lance fucking loses it,

“What’s so funny?” The stranger asks, mildly annoyed but Lance can’t find it in himself to stop.

“There’s” _wheeze_ “something” _Are those tears in his eyes_ “on your face.”

The stranger reaches up, gently tracing his helmet’s surface in confusion before turning back to Lance, seemingly over the whole situation already.

“Well,” the stranger says, relatively put together. “The bounty is gone.”

Lance scratches the back of his neck, calming down as reality washes back over him. “I figured.”

“Who was that guy?”

Lance shrugs.

“If I felt it, I know you must have.”

“Felt what?”

“That I _knew_ him.”

“Excuse me?”

The voice groans before two hands are reaching up. Lance makes quick of pulling out his gun, somehow still close to his person despite being knocked out. _Amateur mistake_ , he thinks towards the other bounty hunter. _He’s an idiot._

The hands make their home on the helmet, slowly tugging it off to reveal startlingly white hair and a face all to familiar that Lance accidentally pulls the trigger.

The gun shoots nothing and with a calmness only to be described as holy, he notes that the bullets have been removed. _Of fucking course, of all people._

“It’s been awhile,” Lotor says, eying Lance from under the mess of his hair, cropped and suffering from a mild case of helmet head but looking wonderful all the same. Bastard.

Lance lays back down in the dirt, watching the sky as more rain falls down on the both of them.

“You win this round, God.”

“I’m right here,” Lotor replies, amused.

“Fuck you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bogboogie on twitter, hunk enthusiast


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